Walden or Life in the Woods, Excerpt - H. D. Thoreau (1854)
Text commentary - 4 pages - Literature
In the intricate labyrinth of literature that delves into the realm of human interaction with the natural world, few works have as much reverence and significance as Henry David Thoreau's "Walden or Life in the Woods." Written in the serene setting of Walden Pond, where Thoreau spent two...
The Bastard - Erskine Caldwell (1929) - What was the writer's purpose with the expression of violence in this novel?
Text commentary - 2 pages - Literature
'Where there is no human connection (...) there is no compassion. The isolated turn cruel in the forms of domestic and civil violence' here is a brief definition from the writer Susan Vreeland which perfectly matches the title character of Erskine Caldwell's crime novel The Bastard....
The Things They Carried, Ambush - Tim O'Brien (1990) - How does the past affect the present in this essay?
Text commentary - 7 pages - Literature
Perhaps more than any other group in society, veterans have a difficult and painful past. Some remember their combat experiences vividly; Some block them entirely. The Things They Carried, by Tim O'Brien (b. 1946), is a collection of short stories that are interdependent. All of these stories...
Great Expectations, Chapter 41 - Charles Dickens (1861) - Pip's Assessment of a Past Event
Text commentary - 2 pages - Literature
Published in 1861 and written by Charles Dickens, Great Expectations is the perfect illustration of the Victorian period. Through this novel, Dickens portrays different social classes in industrial Britain, and mock the aristocracy. Different styles are blended together (notably gothic and...
The Plough and the Stars - Sean O'Casey (1926) - How does the author show his political commitment?
Text commentary - 3 pages - Literature
As Pagans' character John from Thomas MacDonagh's play quotes 'A man who is a mere author is nothing' in 1915, most of the Irish writers, especially playwriters of the period are not only talented dramatists but also national-convinced activists, politically committed and often...
Runaway, Trespasses, Extract - Alice Munro (2004)
Text commentary - 3 pages - Literature
'Every man must define his identity against his mother. If he does not, he just falls back into her and is swallowed up' wrote the American polemist Camille Paglia. Everything is also a question of identity in Alice Munro's short story collection Runaway, published in 2004. The...
Romeo and Juliet - Shakespeare (1597) ; Snow falling on Cedars - David Guterson (1995) ; Photo by Annie Leibovitz - Forbidden Love
Text commentary - 1 pages - Literature
The topic of forbidden love is approached in each document. The first one is an excerpt from Romeo and Juliet written by the famous Shakespeare, a British poet of the 16th century. Corneille, Racine, Aristotle, and Horace are emblematic figures of this theatrical movement. The second one is a...
The Importance of Being Earnest, Act II - Oscar Wilde (1895)
Text commentary - 3 pages - Literature
'As a man sow, so shall he reap': a biblical saying that Miss Prism, as a good Christian, must have been taught at church. But to feel righteous, it is not enough to utter it as she does when reacting to the tidings of Jack's brother's death, it also takes to apply it personally....
Break It Down, Once A Very Stupid Man - Lydia Davis (1986) - How does the author convey a peculiar writing style and sense to her story?
Text commentary - 1 pages - Literature
As the American writer, Matthew Weiner wrote « Identity is part of drama to me. Who am I? Why am I behaving this way? And am I aware of it? », this quote could genuinely sum up the quintessential quest drawn from Lydia Davis's Break It Down short story, entitled Once A Very Stupid Man and...
The Figure in the Carpet - Henry James (1896) - The meaning of art and literature
Text commentary - 2 pages - Literature
The narrator, a young book reviewer, is asked by Corvik, one of his colleagues, to write a review of a well-known author's (named Vereker) latest book. Having read the review, Vereker seizes the opportunity, when he meets the narrator, to tease him by revealing that he has missed the most...
Richard II (Les Belles Lettres) - William Shakespeare (2005); Paradise Lost (Penguin Classics) - John Milton (2003) - What is the place of the epic and the divine in their heroism?
Text commentary - 3 pages - Literature
This textual analysis questions heroism in Shakespeare's Richard II (Les Belles Lettres edition) and John Milton's Paradise Lost (Penguin Classics edition). Richard II by William Shakespeare is essentially based on the plot and the consequences of the decisions taken by King Richard II,...
The Hate U Give - Angie Thomas (2017) - How is « family » represented in The Hate U Give?
Text commentary - 1 pages - Literature
Angie Thomas's "The Hate U Give" portrays diverse family dynamics and underscores the significance of familial bonds in shaping individual identities and responses to social issues. It does so use many literary devices and describing a lot of different meanings of the word "family".
The Sun Also Rises, Book 3, Chapter 19 - Ernest Hemingway (1926) - How the Nothingness is Conveyed by the Author Throughout the Extract ?
Text commentary - 4 pages - Literature
Focusing on the lost generation, in the aftermath of World War I, The Sun Also Rises is mostly autobiographical. In his very first novel, published in 1926, Hemingway depicts the narrator, Jake Barnes, and his wandering from Paris to Spain. Jake is a journalist in Paris. We are in 1925 and he has...
Arcadia, Act 1, Scenes 3 - Tom Stoppard (1993) - Lord Byron was amusing at breakfast
Text commentary - 3 pages - Literature
In the context of Tom Stoppard's play, "The Rehearsal," the provided excerpt offers an intriguing glimpse into the dialogue between two captivating characters, Thomasina and Septimus. This passage, akin to a literary microcosm, unfolds as a verbal theater where the characters discuss...
The Hate U Give - Angie Thomas (2017) - What historical events and context gave rise to this novel?
Text commentary - 2 pages - Literature
Angie Thomas's novel "The Hate U Give" is not merely a fictional story; it is a profound reflection of historical realities that have shaped contemporary society. The novel, which centres on the life of a young Black girl, Starr Carter, who witnesses the police shooting of her unarmed friend,...
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (1813) - Money
Text commentary - 2 pages - Literature
Money, a theme that had been the focus of many novels over the last few centuries. No novelist, however, has mastered to approach it in such a unique manner as Jane Austen. During the Regency period, when wealth and status defined relationships, Jane Austen wrote and published her illustrious...
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (1813) - Love
Text commentary - 2 pages - Literature
Love, a theme that has been the focus of many novels over the last few centuries. No novelist, however, has mastered to approach it in such a unique manner as Jane Austen. During the Regency Period in 1813, Jane Austen wrote and published her illustrious novel Pride and Prejudice, where she...
The Yellow Bird - Tennessee Williams (1947) - The modernist short story, the figure of the writer
Text commentary - 5 pages - Literature
The modernist movement has its origins in the growing industrialization of the late nineteenth century, which profoundly transformed traditional ways of life and the individual's relationship to society. This period was marked by a questioning of artistic values and conventions, reflecting a...
Leviathan - Paul Auster (1992) - How the Dead Man is Depicted in this Extract?
Text commentary - 3 pages - Literature
«Leviathan» by Paul Auster is a roman published in 1992. In this short extract, an unknown and unnamed narrator, after reading some news about a man who blew himself up on the side of a road, is about to tell this man's story. In this text's commentary, we are going to see in a more...
The Thing Around Your Neck - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2009)
Text commentary - 2 pages - Literature
The whole story is narrated in the second person by Akunna, a young Nigerian woman who has just immigrated to the United States of America. Akunna seems to be different from everyone else around her since almost everyone she engages with asks questions regarding her ethnic background, her accent...
As I Lay Dying - William Faulkner (1930) - Chapter 31
Text commentary - 2 pages - Literature
Faulkner has always pointed out that he wrote As I Lay Dying only in a few weeks, while he was still working on Sanctuary. A reference to the eleventh Song in Homer's Odyssey, the title right away foreshadows a Homeric epic. As part of the movement called stream of consciousness, Faulkner...
Recitatif - Toni Morrison (1983) - Race as a social construct
Text commentary - 4 pages - Literature
"Recitatif" of Toni Morrison only short story follows a fairly traditional structure: the narrator relates several episodes in her life, all centered around chance encounters with a childhood friend. Yet the narrative is thoroughly informed by an experiment in omission. Indeed, the two...
Notes of a Native Son, Baldwin, J. (2017) - How can a black man, marginalized and silenced, dehumanized, can see in his struggle the struggle of mankind?
Text commentary - 2 pages - Literature
In the eponymous section of his most celebrated collection of essays, "Notes of a Native Son", James Baldwin, one of the most prominent African-American writers of the last century, explores questions of race through a very personal lens: he recounts his relationship with his father and his...
Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus - Mary Shelley (1818)
Text commentary - 2 pages - Literature
The text studied is an abstract from the novel Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus, written by Mary Shelley and published in 1818. Its genre is fantastic, or horror novel. It is sometimes considered to be a gothic novel.
King Lear - Shakespeare (1606) - A tragedy from the Renaissance
Text commentary - 2 pages - Literature
The violent language used by King Lear in his speech, marking his anger, leads us to another characteristic: the role of art as an instrument of knowledge. Indeed, King Lear's speech evolves through the extract. In the beginning, Lear orders the storm ("Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks!...
Is There a Single Right Interpretation? - Peter Lamarque (2002) - [I]t would be a mistake to give up the truth-seeking aspiration of interpretation altogether
Text commentary - 4 pages - Literature
Lamarque argues that abandoning the pursuit of truth-seeking in interpretation would be a mistake. In this reflection, I will delve into the significance of truth-seeking in interpretation, drawing on relevant documents and scholarly discourse in the field of literary studies. In his statement,...
British and American literature up to the 18th century
Text commentary - 1 pages - Literature
Shakespeare's sonnets deal with themes of life such as love, the passing of time, old age and death. They are therefore universal themes that still speak to us today. Among these sonnets, I chose sonnet 73 which deals with the theme of old age because it is a theme that is not sufficiently...
"North and South" (Nord et Sud) de Elizabeth Gaskell
Text commentary - 7 pages - Literature
Ce document est un commentaire de texte complet et rédigé, entièrement en anglais, sur l'œuvre "North and South" (Nord et Sud) de Elizabeth Gaskell. L'analyse de "Nord et du Sud" aide le lecteur moderne à voir au-delà des versions souvent romancées de la vie victorienne, fréquemment...
A Room of One's Own - Virginia Woolf (1929) ; Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus - Mary Shelley (1818) - The Quest for Education
Text commentary - 2 pages - Literature
While analyzing A Room of One's Own and Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus, the quest for education among the youth in England and the prejudices they had to overcome in their quest to receive an education will be explored. The characters will elaborate on various social and system hurdles...
The English Patient - Michael Ondaatje (1992) - The complexity of identity
Text commentary - 2 pages - Literature
Michael Ondaatje's thriller novel, The English Patient, tells the stories of various characters after the war that disrupted their lives changed their culture and challenged their identity. Most of the characters have endured traumatic experiences that Ondaatje makes apparent by employing...
